Rich culture, delicious food and stories from Afghanistan

A Peek In the Afghan Pantry

09/25/2014

Katie (co-founder of this blog) and I had a lot of fun applying recognizable food terms to Afghan dishes: aushak became Afghan dumpling, falooda became Afghan sundae and sabzi became braised spinach.

Wanting to lose nothing in translation, we fretted over qorma and kebabs since there is no easy way to classify these dishes for a westerner. Most people know kebabs as meat on skewers, but in Afghanistan kebabs take many shapes and forms. Do piazza is one of these hard to classify dishes. It is considered a kebab in Afghan cuisine, but I am calling Do piazza a stew since it is served with its broth after being slow cooked until the meat is tender. The broth brings the key flavors as it adds an extra dimension to the meal when poured over the meat, the lentils and the bread. Do piazza (which mean two onions) is one of my favorite Afghan dishes because it is healthy, hearty and easy to serve as a meal. No side dishes needed. I recently acquired the recipe from Jeja (my mom) fulfilling a reader’s request for this recipe. Do piazza will become a go-to recipe for my parties and busy days of running around since it is also perfect for the slow cooker.

I used beef here but you may substitute lamb. Give this one-bowl dish a try; it will be a hit with the kids. Even my daughter Aria liked the dish.

Stew meat cleaned and cut into 2 1/2-3 inches so it can hold up during the slow cooking

One-Bowl Afghan Meat Stew

Do Piazza

3 pounds bone-in beef stew cut in 3-inch squares

2 medium yellow onions, finely chopped

2 tablespoons olive oil

6 garlic cloves, diced

½ teaspoon turmeric

½ teaspoon black pepper

2 1/2 tablespoons salt, divided

4 cups water

1 medium red onion, cut into thin rings

2 cups white distilled vinegar

1 cup yellow lentils

Lavash bread

Wash the beef thoroughly and let the water drip or pat dry with paper towel.

In a heavy bottom-stewing pan add olive oil and heat on medium-high. Add the yellow onions and fry until golden brown, around 15 minutes. Add the garlic, mix well and cook for another 3 minutes while stirring. Add the meat, one tablespoon of salt, turmeric and black pepper to the pan. Mix well by stirring for a couple of minutes. Add the water, cover and bring to a boil, around 10 minutes. Turn down the heat to low, cover and let it simmer until the meat is tender and easy to cut with a fork. Depending on the quality and size of your meat, this could take 1 ½ to 2 hours. Keep an eye on the stew so the broth doesn’t dry up. If the water reduces too much, add water, half a cup at a time. When the stew is cooked, there should be around 2-3 cups of broth left.

While the meat is cooking, mix the vinegar and 1 tablespoon of salt in a bowl, add the red onion and let it marinate until the meat is done. Make sure that the vinegar covers the onions, if not add more vinegar. You can do this ahead of time, the flavors of the onions will develop better the longer it marinates. The onions will be used as garnish.

Onions marinating in vinegar

In a small saucepan, add the lentils, 3-4 cups of water and ½ tablespoon of salt, cover and bring to a boil. Cook on medium heat until the lentils are soft, around 20 minutes. Drains and return to the saucepan. Add the 1 1/2 cups of the beef broth. Simmer for another five minutes.

Large yellow lentils works best

Blanket a large serving platter with one or two lavash bread. Place the meat, the lentils and the onions in piles next to each other on the lavash bread, pour one cup of the broth over the meat, lentils and bread. Cut the rest of the lavash bread in pieces to be served on the side of the dish. Do piazza is mostly served by itself. It is a lot of fun to use your hands to eat this dish.

09/04/2014

I am a cereal girl when it comes to breakfast food. Eggs are my lunch or dinner go to food for a quick delicious meal. In Afghanistan people have boiled eggs or sunny side up for breakfast, but this is rare since eggs are expensive. Most people in the villages keep a couple of chickens around for their coveted eggs.

When I was a little girl we lived in a modern two-story house in Kabul with a big yard. My father, a diplomat, loved gardening, growing his own fruit and keeping chickens so we had a chicken coupe in the corner of the yard with around 10 chickens and a rooster. In the mornings I loved to retrieve the freshly laid eggs for breakfast.

This recipe is an amalgamation of various styles of egg recipes I have seen over the years. The sautéing of the tomatoes until caramelized I learned from my daughter’s Turkish babysitter. Adding cumin for extra flavor came from my aunt and the hollowed hard-crusted bread I took from a scene in the movie Moonstruck when Olympia Dukakis cooks eggs for Cher.

In this recipe I use tomatoes, but since tomato season is over you may substitute canned or homemade tomato sauce. The eggs are even more flavorful and richer in flavor with tomato sauce.

Ready to eat!

Afghan Inspired Open-Face Sandwich

Tomatoes, Cumin and Paprika Flavored Eggs

1 tbsp. olive oil

1 tomato diced or 1/4-cup tomato sauce

A pinch of cumin and paprika

2 one inch thick slices of hard crusted Italian bread

2 eggs

Heat oil in a frying pan on high heat. Add the diced tomatoes to the pan and stir for around 2 minutes until caramelized. If using tomato sauce you can cook the sauce for a couple of minutes to brings out its flavors. Add the cumin and paprika to the tomatoes and stir until mixed well. Move the caramelized tomatoes to the edge of the pan. Remove the inside of the bread; place the hollowed bread in the pan. Gently place each egg inside the bread crust.

Reduce temperature to medium, place a lid on the pan and cook for around 5-7 minutes until the whites of the eggs are fully cooked through. It is important to keep the temperature low so the bottom of the bread doesn’t burn.

Gently remove the open-faced sandwiches, place on a plate, put a dollop of tomatoes sauce on top of the eggs and place the rest around the eggs. Season with salt and pepper to your taste and enjoy with a glass of your favorite drink.

07/30/2014

Your comments are welcome!

By Humaira

It's not every day when lamb meets cherries in a pot. In the case of today's recipe, Qorma e Aloo Baloo, the end result is a symphony of sweet and sour delight for your taste buds.

After 33 years of living in the United States, I still remember cherry season in Afghansitan, when my mom’s cousin would deliver boxes of cherries to our home. Jeja, my mom, would get busy making jams and cherry juice before the lot went bad.

My younger brother and I would secretly stuff our faces with fresh cherries before we were found out and banished from the kitchen.

My creations are not always welcomed by my children. They live in fear of the next recipe, and the “strange” dish that will be presented at dinner. I was convinced that the rich taste of slow cooked lamb and the sweet cherry sauce would not be popular. But, to my surprise, I got two thumbs up.

Generally I find sweet and sour dishes overwhelming. so I served this with a side of braised cauliflower, Gulpea and Afghan white rice, Challaw which was just the right combination of sweet and savory. This dish will also go well with a side of fresh salad or yogurt.

My sister Nabila made this dish with beef over the holidays. Of course I tweaked what created and discovered the lamb works well too. I hope you like this dish and I welcome your thoughts in the comment section of this post.

Note: If you are not near a Trader Joe’s, you may use two cups of any type of canned or frozen sour cherries. If you are not a fan of lamb, just substitute beef stew meat. It is equally delicious.

Add olive oil in a heavy bottomed pot with lid, place on medium high heat. Add diced onions to the pot and sauté for 3 minutes or, until the onions are translucent. Save 1/2 cup of cherry syrup from the jar and drain the cherries in a colander.

Wash meat thoroughly; pat dry with a paper towel before adding to the pot. Sprinkle the coriander on the meat, stir well and cook on medium high for five minutes or until the meat is browned. Add the cherry juice, turn the heat down to low, cover with the lid and simmer for 45-50 minutes, stirring every ten minutes.

Just added cherries and cilantro to the pot

Once the sauce thickens add the cherries, cilantro, salt, black pepper and cayenne pepper. Stir well and simmer for 20 minutes without lid.

07/01/2014

Saveur Magazine Article

By Monica Bhide

When I was a child in Delhi, India, cardamom was as familiar as the air I breathed. Its sweet, woodsy perfume regularly filled the house when my parents were cooking. But it took me a while to appreciate the spice's flavor. "Too strong for me," I would say as I picked the pale green cardamom pods out of any rice dish or curry that was placed before me. It wasn't until I got a bit older and started drinking masala chai, India's ubiquitous brew of tea, milk, and spice, that I began to come around. Each Indian home has its own version, its own mix of flavoring spices. My father's chai was spiced only with cardamom, and plenty of it. He'd use a mortar and pestle to crush the pods and release their flavor before steeping them with the strong black tea. Perhaps it was the richness of the milk that made the difference: it seemed to both soften and deepen the flavor of the spice. All at once I was able to discern the cardamom's penetrating warmth and the way its complex flavor of pine, sweet musk, and bright citrus was awakened by the bitterness of the tea.

After my family moved from India to Bahrain, in the Persian Gulf, I discovered gahwa, the fragrant Arabic cardamom coffee, and loved nothing better than sipping it along with a square of cardamom-spiced baklava. It was Arab traders who first carried cardamom from India to Babylon, Egypt, Greece, and Rome, and today the Arab countries still consume more of it than any other place on earth.

It's still a precious commodity, too—nearly as costly as saffron and vanilla because, like them, it must be harvested by hand—and when I was a teenager, in our house as well as at our neighbors', serving cardamom to guests was understood as a gesture of respect. Often, that would mean producing an extravagantly spiced biryani made with nutty-tasting basmati rice, quite possibly the best vehicle for cardamom ever discovered. Sometimes, after a big meal, we'd follow my grandmother's custom and pass around cardamom pods to chew. In the ayurvedic system, cardamom is as much medicine as it is food; the same aromatic compounds that give the spice its flavor and warming properties also aid digestion.

As I began to spend more time in the kitchen, I learned that there is more than one type of cardamom and that each brings its own qualities to a dish. Green cardamom (Elettaria cardamomum), the most highly prized kind, is a bushy herb of the ginger family native to southwest India. It's cultivated extensively there and in Guatemala, now the world's largest exporter; Costa Rica, Tanzania, and Sri Lanka are the other top producers. The plants grow in clusters of slender stalks about 10 feet tall with large, lance-shaped leaves. The spice pods, which grow on shoots at the plant's base, are picked when they are just ripening and then dried under the sun or in a kiln. These small, oval pods and the tiny black seeds within contain the various compounds we experience as sweet, floral, and eucalyptus-like. That unique balance works as well in savory dishes as it does in sweet ones.

Black cardamom (Amomum subulatum), a spice native to the Himalayas and cultivated today in Nepal, India, China, and Bhutan, has larger, deeply ridged pods that are dried over wood fires. As a result, the pods take on a dark brown color and a bold, smoky flavor that would overwhelm a sweet cake or pudding, but in a spice rub for roasted meat or in a full-flavored stew it imparts a smoldering depth no other spice can. Used together in a single dish, such as my family's chicken curry, green and black cardamom can harmonize beautifully. I've learned, too, about similarly fragrant relatives of cardamom, including delicate, floral Thai cardamom (see Expressions of Cardamom) and peppery West African grains of paradise.

Since I moved to the United States 19 years ago, cardamom has been both a link to home and a bridge to other cuisines. The Scandinavians, it turns out, are second only to the Arabs in their hunger for cardamom, which the Vikings discovered in Constantinople a thousand years ago. Nordic cooks grasped early on that the fat-soluble spice blooms when baked in butter-laden sweets and breads. It's the keynote in the luscious Swedish cream puffs known as semlor and in Finland's yeast-risen, braided pulla bread, among many other baked treats.

In the cooking classes I teach, I advise students to buy pods of green cardamom with a vibrant color and a strong fragrance; ones that are dull looking and shriveled will almost certainly have lost their flavor. The product labeled "white cardamom" is really just green cardamom that's been bleached for purely aesthetic reasons, and—to judge from the kinds I've tried—robbed of most of its taste and aroma. And since the flavor evaporates very quickly from the seeds once they're removed from the pod, and especially once they've been ground, it's best to buy the spice whole. If you want to cook with just the seeds—I like to fry them in oil to create a flavor base for all kinds of dishes—just use your fingers to pop open the pods and remove the seeds; keep the empty pods for steeping in coffee or tea. When I'm making desserts, I'll grind the seeds to a powder using a mortar and pestle or an electric spice grinder. As for black cardamom, it's almost always used whole and then discarded after cooking. I've never seen it for sale already ground.

I'm happy to say that my children have loved cardamom from the start. When I make the cardamom-spiced rice pudding called kheer, I tell them the story of how, once upon a time, I was a young engineering student who had just moved to the States. Everything was unfamiliar; nothing seemed to taste quite right. Finally, I borrowed ingredients from my neighbors and set about making my mother's kheer. When the milk, sugar, and rice began to simmer, I broke open a few pods of cardamom and dropped them into the pan; soon the kitchen began to radiate the spice's familiar scent. As I leaned over the stove to taste the kheer, the doorbell rang. Standing outside was a handsome young man who said he lived in the building next door. He was an MBA student from Mumbai; on his way to the library, he'd caught the scent of cardamom and, himself a little homesick, couldn't resist following it to its source. At this point my kids usually chime in. "That's when you met Daddy!" they cry, and my husband grins. Then we eat the kheer together, and the cardamom tastes just strong enough.

06/20/2014

I read this fictionalized short story of my family's accidental run in with pork and the trials of resettlement in a foreign land. Many people in my writer's workshop shared that they too had similar experiences. I realized that perhaps there are similar stories out there that we can all relate to in some level. This post is in honor of World Refugee Day 2014

Pork Eating Afghans - My Love Affair with SPAM

It’s our family’s first week as political refugees in Germany. Food stamps safely tucked in her purse, Jeja; my mother scans the shelves of the German supermarket with awe and confusion. We walk up and down the endless aisles, our mouths gaping; we have never seen so many varieties of chocolates, sodas and breads.

When the social worker hands Jeja the bundle of food stamps, my 11-year-old mathematical mind converts Deutschmarks into Afghanis. I am overjoyed at our wealth. But soon I realize we are not so rich after all.

In the unwisely chosen Ambassador Hotel in the red light district of Frankfurt, Afghan refugee are crammed in rooms too small for their families. Most of these Afghans come from well-to-do families with big homes, servants and walled in compounds where family secrets are kept safe from outsiders. In 1979 when the Russian tanks rolled into Kabul, the educated and wealthy Afghan’s were pushed right out of the country into foreign lands. Now, the Ambassador Hotel is a stew of frustration, discontent and lost hopes, wafting its foul smell through halls brightly lit with fluorescents.

Among the refugees, a thin, tall and self-important woman has appointed herself as advisor to all newcomers. We called her “Bossy Lady”. She gives advice on how to navigate the streets of Frankfurt, how to ride public transportation without paying and how to shop wisely to make food stamps last. But her advice is not free; in return for her help she extracts every family’s tragic story, which she stores in the vault of her mind. Perhaps our tragedies help her forget her son’s early death at the hands of Russian soldiers.

In Afghanistan we ate fresh food but living in a hotel room without a refrigerator or a stove Jeja has to be creative with meals. Which is how we learn about canned food. Bossy Lady gives us sample cans of garbanzo beans, kidney beans and a special meat called Spam, which she raves about; it is delicious, very cheap and it doesn’t go bad.

That night we have a feast. German rye bread, garbanzo bean, yogurt and sliced Spam. We love the salty and creamy texture of Spam and ask for seconds. Not knowing German or the ingredients of this magical meat Jeja wonders how on earth did they make this beef so tasty, so long lasting and so pink.

As we find our footing in our safe new world, we slowly lose fears of exploding bombs, entrapment or being shot by Russian soldiers on the side of the road. Since most of us are just passing through here on our way to our final destinations we live an amorphous life. Our days start and end without much structure except for breakfast. Everyday between 7-8 am all residents of the Ambassador Hotel meet for the only meal where we sit in a dining room with tables, clean starched white tablecloths and proper serving dishes. The servers offer tea, coffee or milk with soft warm rolls, eggs butter and jam. Since most of us left lives where we were served and treated with dignity, we cherish this one meal.

But on a random Tuesday, we again lose our footing. We emerge from the elevator around 7:30 am to find a major commotion in the breakfast hall. Women are wailing. Men look like they are mourning the death of their first-born son and children are looking down into their hands with shame. The Bossy Lady is in the center of the room eyes wide open with the whites showing, hands flailing as she shares the horrible events that brings us disgrace.

It turns out; a young Afghan man has befriended Germans and learned that Spam is not beef. Spam is short for Spiced Ham. This young man and his family sit in the corner of the room, far away from everyone, looking guilty as if the whole Spam incident is their fault. You see, eating pork is a major sin in Islam and right there we have 300 pork eating Muslims.

The Afghan mothers who are expected to be the protectors of piety are tormented every day when they leave the hotel with their children in tow and have to pass windows dressed by nude prostitutes selling their bodies. Now they have to face the extra sin piled upon their families, the consumption of pork.

Finally the Bossy Lady states what we already know. No one could be blamed for this; since everyone unknowingly participated in the Spam gluttony it is not a sin in the eyes of Allah. That settles it; her statement gives us all permission to accept our innocence. From that day on not a single can of Spam entered through the doors of the Ambassador Hotel but it was too late for me, I could not forget its delicious taste.

05/01/2014

Aside from Jeja, my mom, Helen Saberi would be the next person I would go to for Afghan cooking advice. Helen is the author of Afghan Food and Cookery, the one and only published Afghan cookbook.

When Helen told me about her newest project, an e-cookbook co-written by Colleen Taylor Sen, about Turmeric, I readily agreed to contribute a couple of my own recipes.

Helen who lives in England and Colleen in Chicago - first met in the mid 1990s at the Oxford Symposium on Food and Cookery, and have since met nearly every year at the same event. They have a lot in common despite living on different sides of the Atlantic. Colleen’s expertise is food history of India and Helen's is Afghan and Central Asian food.

Below is an excerpt from their e-cookbook, published by Agate Publishing, about medicinal benefits of Turmeric. I have also included one of 70 delicious recipes from the book - Afghan Fish Stew.

Turmeric - the Wonder Spice

an e-cookbook

Turmeric is one of the most versatile and ancient spices. It is used in a variety of ways: as a dye, a ritual and ceremonial item, a medicine, an antiseptic, and, above all else, as a flavoring. The English name for the spice is thought to come from the Latin terra merita, which means “worthy (or meritorious) earth”—and the name is well deserved, for turmeric is truly a wonder spice!

From time immemorial, spices have played an important role in Indian, Chinese, and Indonesian medicine, and none was more important than turmeric. It was used to treat gastrointestinal and pulmonary disorders, diabetes, atherosclerosis, bacterial infections, gum disease, and skin diseases. Even today, South Asians apply a paste of turmeric and water as an antiseptic to cuts and strains; take a teaspoon in warm milk or yogurt, either after a meal as an aid to digestion or to relieve the symptoms of a fever; and breathe steam infused with turmeric to relieve congestion.

A couple of decades ago, medical researchers began noticing an interesting phenomenon in countries such as India, Singapore, and Malaysia, where turmeric and curry powder are dietary staples. Compared to countries where turmeric-rich dishes are less common, these countries had (and continue to have) significantly lower rates of certain ailments, including: breast, prostate, lung, and colon cancers; childhood leukemia; and Alzheimer’s disease.

To follow up on these epidemiological observations, scientists conducted thousands of studies, mainly controlled laboratory tests on cell cultures and animals. The results have been so promising that the National Institutes of Health, the American Cancer Society, the National Institute on Aging, the UK Medical Research Council, and other agencies are supporting additional investigations, including clinical trials of human patients.

According to ClinicalTrials.gov, a registry of US clinical studies, nearly 80 clinical trials of the effectiveness of turmeric have been or are being conducted to date. In mid-2013, PubMed, the US National Library of Medicine’s database of articles from medical and biological science journals around the world, contained nearly 6,000 references to turmeric and curcumin—compare this to 2005, when there were just 300 references. Around the turn of the century, large pharmaceutical companies attempted to patent curcumin and turmeric, but were denied by the United States Patent and Trademark Office in 2001 on the grounds that its medicinal properties were not patentable.

Although much of the research is in its early stages, the results are so promising that physicians are recommending everyone add 1/2 teaspoon of turmeric to their daily diet. Health-food companies are jumping on the turmeric bandwagon by producing expensive supplements, whose purity and efficacy are not easily verifiable since they are not subject to government regulation in the United States. A much more pleasant, inexpensive, and safe way to bring turmeric into your life is to incorporate it into your meals, and the purpose of this book is to show you ways of doing this via fun, tasty, and easy-to-make.

In Afghanistan, the large river fish called mahi laqa is used for this dish; however, cod or haddock can be substituted. Traditionally, mooli safaid (known in the West as white radish or daikon) is cooked with the fish, but it can also be prepared without and is still very good.

2. In a large skillet, warm the oil over high heat and fry the fish quickly on both sides, until golden brown. Do not cook through. Remove from the heat, transfer the fish from the skillet to a plate, and set aside. Reserve the oil and set aside.

3. Fill a small saucepan with water and bring to a boil. Add the mooli and 1/2 teaspoon of the turmeric. Boil gently until soft, then drain and set aside.

4. Filter the oil, then place it into a deep saucepan. Reheat the oil over medium heat and fry the chopped onions and crushed garlic, until soft and reddish-brown. Mix in the tomatoes and fry vigorously, until the tomatoes brown and the liquid is reduced. Add the water, the coriander, and the remaining 1/2 teaspoon of the turmeric. Season to taste with red pepper flakes and salt. Stir, cover, reduce the heat to low, and simmer for about 30 minutes.

5. Meanwhile, place 1/2 of the reserved mooli in the bottom of a large saucepan. Add the fish, then top with the remaining mooli.

6. Once the tomato sauce is cooked, pour over the fish and mooli. Gently simmer for 5 minutes. Do not overcook or boil vigorously, or the fish will disintegrate. Serve hot, with white rice.

04/25/2014

Jeja (my mom) has a reputation of being an excellent cook within the Bay Area Afghan community. I wouldn’t dare share any recipe that wouldn’t pass muster with her. In this blog I share my family's home cooking recipes for your Western kitchen. The blog is my way to educate the world about Afghan people and the delicious food of Afghanistan. It's also my effort to keep in touch with my cultural heritage as I raise my two daughters in San Francisco, California.

My research for this blog has not only strenghtened my relationship with my mom, it has also given me great appreciation and understanding of Afghan people.

What has been most surprising to me is how food brings people across all cultures together.

Once I was at my daughter's class pot-luck -- I introduced myself to the math teacher. She looked at my name tag and said,

I am alway thrilled a to meet a reader but, the ones that take my recipes and make it their own is even more exciting to me.

In this blog the recipes have been tested by Afghans and non Afghans. I always retain the delicious flavors of Afghan food but simplify the cooking so it's accessible to experienced and novice cooks.

Padron chilis are small and relatively mild. I used them in this recipe to create my version of an Afghan chili sauce, a condiment commonly served with kebabs or as an accompaniment to other side dishes. I don’t particularly like super spicy foods, but I love a little zing of pepper alongside milder dishes. This sauce is designed to brighten the flavors of rice, meat or Qorma dishes without overpowering the food. Use sparingly.

Afghan Inspired Spicy Chili Sauce

Chutney

2 pints padron chilis (around 22 peppers), ends off and seeds removed

3 cloves peeled garlic

1 teaspoon salt

½ teaspoon ground black pepper

2 tablespoons roughly chopped walnuts

½ cup white vinegar

Put the peppers, garlic, salt, black pepper, walnuts, and vinegar in the food processor and use the pulse button to grind the peppers and mix the ingredients. Pulse a couple of times, wipe the sides, check the consistency and pulse more. The sauce looks best and ends up with a pleasing crunch if you don’t over blend it. If you prefer things really spicy, use a hotter chili like jalapenos.

Serve in a small bowl and use a small amount to eat with whatever you are making for dinner.

03/27/2014

For many years I hosted an Afghan dinner as an auction item for my daughter’s school fundraiser. I found myself slaving over the meal for many days and at the end there was nothing to show for my hours of labor except for a kitchen full of dirty dishes. After someone mentioned that they wanted to learn how to cook Afghan food, a light bulb went on. Why not do a “Cook Your Own Afghan Feast” auction item? That is exactly what I have done in the past two years and I must say it has been lots of fun sharing the cooking with my guests.

Jeja, my mom and all her friends would be horrified to find out that I have my guests cooking the whole meal. It is against all the rules of Afghan hospitality. So, when I told Jeja about this dinner party, I left out this minor detail. Instead I focused on my mantoo dish, which is a conglomerate of various recipes that I tested over and over until I got just the right flavors. Normally, Jeja is my source for recipes, but she prefers aushak to mantoo and rarely makes this dish. The basic difference between the two dumpling dishes is that the aushak is boiled and served with a meat sauce on top while mantoo is steamed with the meat mixture inside the dumpling. You would think this is not a big deal but the meat is cooked differently in each recipe, which of course makes the dishes taste very different.

I tinkered with this mantoo recipe until it ended up tasting like the dish I was served in in Ghazni, Afghanistan two year ago when a warlord brought dinner for us on the NATO forward operating base (a story that will be revealed in a different post).

My conclusion after various versions of the recipe is that lamb meat is key in getting the best flavors with mantoo. I have said many times that I don’t like lamb but what can I say, it is the only way to go with mantoo.

When I was little girl in Afghanistan, my relatives from Ghazni would have an aushak and mantoo making party in the spring. It was an all day event, we would arrive at Boboa Jan’s house in the early afternoon, our mothers would stuff fresh dough cut into thin square wrapper with various stuffing. They would gossip, laugh and pass the afternoon away. The servants would steam the stuffed dumplings and serve it on a distarkhwan on the floor where we would all gather to feast on these mouth-watering dishes. Maybe it was the memory of those afternoon which inspired me to have my own “Make Your Afghan Feast” party.

In the spirit of Afghan hospitality I suggest you gather a few friends and create your own mantoo making party filled with an afternoon of gossiping, cooking and eating.

Stuffing dumplings is fun with kids

Afghan Meat Dumpling

Mantoo

Sauce:

1 15 oz. can diced tomatoes

1 15 oz. can tomato sauce

1 cup dried kidney beans boiled for 20 minutes on high heat but not cooked through

1 tbsp. olive oil

1 tbsp. diced garlic

1 tsp. ground coriander

1 tsp. paprika

1 tsp. turmeric

2 cups organic chicken broth

Dumpling:

Steaming pot

2 tbsp. olive oil

2 medium yellow onions diced

1 lb. ground lamb

1 tsp. coriander

2 medium white onions diced

1 cup finely chopped cilantro

1 large package of wonton dough

Yogurt sauce:

½ cup sour cream or Greek yogurt

½ cup full fat plain yogurt

1 tsp. salt

pinch of garlic powder

Heat the olive oil in a deep saucepan on medium-high, and add garlic. Sauté for two minutes until golden. Add all the ingredients of the sauce to the pan, stir well, and bring to a boil. Once the sauce is boiling, turn down the heat to low, cover with a lid and simmer for an hour until the beans are soft and the sauce thickens.

In a large frying pan, sauté the diced yellow onions in olive oil. When the onions are golden brown add the lamb and coriander. Mix well; make sure the lamb does not clump together. Cook over medium heat for around 30 minutes. Remove from heat; place the meat in a colander until all the juice is drained. Let it cool.

While the meat is cooling mix the sour cream, yogurt, salt and garlic powder in a bowl. Stir with a fork until creamy. Set aside.

Add the meat, cilantro and the diced white onions in a bowl and mix by hand until all the ingredients are evenly distributed. On a large clean surface, set out as many wonton wrappers as you can.

In each wrapper, place a tablespoon of the meat mixture. To assemble the dumplings, fill a small bowl with water and put it at your workstation.

Dip the tip of your finger in the water. Moisten the edges of the wrapper. The water will serve as glue for the dumpling. Take two opposite edges of the dough and bring them together in the center, use the tip of your finger to firmly press the edges of the dough together to form a tight seal. Nip together the two remaining sides of the wrapper. Repeat until all the wrappers are used.

Use a dab of oil to grease the steamer shelve with the tips of your fingers, this will prevent the mantoo from sticking to the pot.

Place each stuffed mantoo next to each other leaving a little room in between each one. When the water is boiling, place the steaming rack inside the pot, cover and steam each batch for around 7 minutes. Spread 2 tablespoons of the yogurt sauce on the large platter.

Remove the cooked dumplings from the steaming rack and place on the platter. Repeat these steps until all the dumplings are steamed. Arrange the cooked mantoo on the platter in one layer

Spoon the piping hot bean sauce on top of the mantoo. I like to pour some of the yoguft sauce on the finished platter but traditionally the sauce is served separately for each person to add to their own taste.

03/13/2014

Rosewater

What is it?

A by product of making rose oil for perfumes, rose water has been used for centuries in Europe, the Middle East, and Asia, where it flavors drinks like hot milk or tea, desserts like Turkish delight, baklava, and rice pudding, and even adds a subtle complexity to savory foods. It lends its delicate, floral flavor. Because it is very potent, add it judiciously, by the eighth of a teaspoon, so that it doesn’t overpower other flavors.

How to choose:

You can find rose water at Middle Eastern or health-food stores. Since it’s also used for cosmetic purposes, look for a label that says 100% pure rose water, with no other additives to be sure you’re getting a food-grade product.

02/27/2014

Yogurt is one of my obsessions. I eat it with everything. I love the tangy cool taste, which enhances every dish. Once I horrified my husband by dumping two large spoonfuls of plain yogurt into my bowl of ramen noodles.

Afghans add yogurt as a topping to many dishes such as kadoo, aushak, and aush. However, my family goes over the top, we add yogurt to everything. Recently I learned I am allergic to yogurt. This was a sad day for me. Apparently I am allergic to the protein in milk not be confused with lactose intolerance. This type of allergy can cause inflammation, body aches, mucus build-up and cold symptoms.

As part of my yogurt grieving, I went on a rampage of furious yogurt making. Since I couldn’t eat any of it, the yogurt was delivered throughout the city to my taste testers at children’s basketball games, carpool lines or by husband’s delivery service.

For years I have watched Jeja (my mom) make tangy creamy yogurt but I never mustered up the courage to make it myself. When I finally dove in, I found yogurt making very relaxing and rewarding. To transform a liquid into a semi-solid made me feel like a chemist or, better yet, a magician.

The right yogurt starter is the key to success. Unbelievably yogurt starter is just a few spoonfuls of yogurt. The yogurt kick starts the thickening of the milk proteins, adds tartness and acts as a preservative. Choose your favorite yogurt as the yogurt starter; your homemade yogurt will taste just like it. I use Saint Benoit Yogurt which is creamy, tart and to die for.

Heating the milk to the right temperature is important. The milk must first reach 185° and then it must cool to 110° before you add the yogurt starter. I used a digital thermometer to help track the temperature. I hung the thermometer on the side of the pot and kept an eye on it until it reached the right temperatures. In the recipe I provide some pointers to help you gauge the right temperature if you don’t have a thermometer.

This recipe calls for whole milk, which makes the yogurt very creamy but you may use 2% or 1% milk, which met my tester’s approval too.

Homemade Creamy and Tangy Yogurt

½ gallon whole organic milk

3 tablespoons good quality whole milk yogurt with live and active cultures

heavy bottom deep pan

two 2 pint size jars with tight fitting lids, disinfected and dry

Instand read thermometer (optional)

I think making yogurt overnight is the best way to do it. There's nothing like waking up to a fresh batch to have with your breakfast. Letting the milk rest in the oven (turned off, of course) is the ideal spot according to Jeja, who feels the cozy temperature of the oven is just right for turning milk into yogurt. Don't forget to set aside 3 tablespoons of your finished yogurt to use as a starter for your next batch before you gobble it all down.

Pour the milk into a deep, heavy bottom saucepan and set over medium heat. Cook stirring occasionally, until the milk reaches 185°. You can test this using an instant read thermometer or gauge it by cooking the milk just until it is on the verge of boiling. Look for lots of tiny bubbles on the surface of the milk. This will take about 15 minutes depending on your pan and stove. Remove the milk from the heat and let is cool to 110°. This will take about an hour.

While the milk cools down, put the starter yogurt into a medium bowl and stir with a fork until creamy. Once the milk has cooled to 110°, pour into the bowl and stir for 2 minutes to make sure the yogurt and milk are mixed well.

Pour the milk into the jars and close the lids tightly. Place the jars on baking tray right next to each other so they can keep each other warm, cover with several dishcloths to make them cozy. Place them in a warm place, such as near the stove, for 9-12 hours to rest.

Serving size: Half a gallon of milk make ½ gallon of yogurt

My thermometer was really handy with reaching the right temprature

If you don't have a thermometer look for the bubblesl which is a great indicator of reaching the right temprature.

Deborah Rodriguez, author of The New York Times bestselling memoir Kabul Beauty School, makes her compelling fiction debut in this novel of a remarkable coffee shop in the heart of Afghanistan and the women who meet there - each with a story and a secret that will lead them to forge an extraordinary friendship.

The publishers have a "How to host the perfect tea party" section where our recipes are cleverly placed to encourage a tea time gathering. If you have read this book and used our recipes, let us know how it turned out.

Thinking back to the past few years, I am happy to report our recipes have been featured in many publications and blogs including Food52, San Francisco Chronicle, Foreign Policy, veggiebelly.com, ingredientmatcher.com and the soon to be published YOGURT CULTURE cookbook.

01/23/2014

I made these Almond and Cardamom Meringue Cookies and could barely get them onto the baking sheet because of all the finger licking that was going on. If I come down with a ferocious case of salmonella, you’ll know why. All that sweet meringue, spiced with cardamom, and accented with the texture and flavor of ground almonds made a delicious batter, and an even better finished cookie. But then, I’m a sucker for anything meringue.

These cookies couldn’t be easier to make. Essentially, you whip egg whites with powdered sugar and then fold in ground almonds. You can buy almond meal, which is finely ground, blanched almonds, or make your own, which is what I did when I discovered I didn’t have any on hand. Just be sure not to grind it so much that you end up with almond butter.

The recipe comes from a new cookbook called “Afghan Desserts Made Simple” (Dog Ear Publishing, 2010). It’s the only Afghan dessert cookbook we know of, probably for good reason. There frankly aren’t a whole lot of Afghan desserts to write about. Afghans most often turn to dried and fresh fruits to satisfy their sweet tooth. Prepared desserts are reserved for special occasions. Truth be told, this recipe isn't authentically Afghan. It's inspired by an Afghan almond cookie But, using this many egg whites and this many ground almonds would be prohibitively decadent in Afghanistan.

The book is written by Sina Abed, a woman who, like so many in Afghanistan, fled her home in Kabul and came to the United States with her family. Like our blog, her book is a way to keep a record of the precious recipes that are preserved in the memories of the women who left Afghanistan over the past several decades. This particular cookie is well worth preserving in your own repertoire of recipes.

Almond and Cardamom Meringue Cookies

Kuche Badami

2 ½ cups almond meal *

¾ cup all-purpose white flour

1 teaspoon ground cardamom

4 egg whites

¼ teaspoon cream of tartar

2 cups powdered sugar

Whole or slivered almonds for garnish

Makes 3 dozen cookies.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

In a medium bowl, mix together the almond meal, flour, and cardamom. Stir well.

In a large, immaculately clean mixing bowl, whip the egg whites with an electric beater until foamy. Add the cream of tartar and continue beating until soft peaks form. Gradually add the powdered sugar and continue to beat until stiff peaks form.

Gently fold the almond meal into the egg whites, mixing until you have a smooth, even consistency.

Line baking sheets with parchment paper. Drop large spoonfuls (about 2 tablespoons or so) of the batter onto mounds on the baking sheet. Top each mound with one whole almond or two slivered almonds.

Bake until the cookies just begin to brown around the edges, 15 to 20 minutes. Less cooking time will result in a chewier cookie.

*You can make your own almond meal by grinding blanched almonds in a blender. Grind the almonds enough so they form a fine meal, but not so much that it begins to stick together and resemble almond butter.

12/30/2013

Our holiday season was made even more special by a visit from my cousin Ghani, who is on his first trip to the United States. It was really fun to show him around, and see my world from his perspective. He had many insightful questions such as:

- What is the difference between McDonalds and In-N-Out Burger?

- Why did educated, democratically elected American politicians shut their government down?

- What is the difference between a street, court, boulevard and avenue?

Some questions were easy to answer and other not so much.

We took him to many restaurants, he was game to try new things but felt most foods were too dry and needed more oil.

He shared recipes for a variety of his favorite Afghan dishes which I hope to share with in 2014. In Afghan hospitality the guest is never allowed to enter the kitchen but we finally relented and allowed him to make his favorite juice for the family --- an instant hit.

I find that most people stay away from whole pomegranates since they are difficult to seed. In this recipe I have a quick and easy technique to seed pomegranate in less than one minute.

I hope you start your new year with a glass of Ghani's wonderfully refreshing and healthy juice.

Ghani's Quince, Pomegranate and Apple Juice

1 large pomegranate seeded

1 quince cored and cut in slices

3 red apples cored and cut in slices

1/2 cup water

Roll whole pomegranate on a hard surface or kitchen counter while putting pressure with both hands. This loosens the seeds. Cut the pomegranate in half, hold the open side down in the palm of your hand over a deep bowl to avoid the splatter of the juice. Take a heavy spoon or a wooden spatula and hit the back of the pomegranate 3-4 times. Most of the seeds will fall out after a couple of whacks.

Pick out the rest of the seeds by hand and remove any skin before juicing. Put the fruit through your juicer, pouring a little water in between each fruit to clear out the juicer.

11/25/2013

The older I get the more I like my own food. At pot-lucks, I grab a nice plateful of my dish before others get to it. At restaurants I order food with similar spices and flavors. I recently accepted the dark reality that I have become my mother --- when it comes to food.

The first time I had Mujaddara, it was love at first bite. It tasted very similar to my favorite Afghan dish Shohla but not as filling. I recently sought a recipe for this dish popular in Arab countries and settled on a recipe from the Food Network since I had the ingredients in my pantry. To my children's annoyance, I have made this dish every week in the past month to perfect the recipe to my taste, my waist line and to my kid's palette.

It occured to me that most of us struggle with new and innovative Thanksgiving side dishes. If you want to jazz up your Thanksgiving meal, perhaps you might want to consider Mujaddara or some of following Afghan dishes:

Mujaddara means pock-marked in Arabic, referring to the the black or green lentils mixed in with rice, onions, coriander and cumin. I have to admit, I did make the dish with Trader Joe's steamed lentils which turned out fabulous and it cut the cooking time in half. However, in this recipe I use dry green lentils so those who are not near a TJ's can still make the dish.

May the cooking fairies make your Thanksgiving day a fabulous one. This year I give thanks for my family, for my health and for my community (that includes all of you). I also remember my father Ghulam Farouq Ghilzai, who celebrated Thanksgiving with great enthusiasm every year since it was his favorite American holiday. He always reminded us to be thankful for living in this fabulous country, the United States.

Humaira's Mujaddara

An Arabic Rice and Lentil Dish

1 cup small green lentils

1/4 cup olive oil

1 tsp. cumin seeds

3 red onion thinly sliced

1 cup short grain or calrose rice rinsed

1/2 tsp. ground cumin

1/2 tsp. ground coriander

1/8 tsp. cayenne pepper or skip if you have kids

1 tbsp. salt (adjust to your taste)

1 tsp. ground black pepper

3 cups water

In a pan, add lentils and cold water. On high heat, bring to a boil, then reduce to simmer. Cook until lentils are soft, around 15-20 minutes. Don't over cook the lentils since they will simmer with the rice.

While the lentils are cooking, place a deep frying pan on high heat and add olive oil. After a minute, add cumin seeds and stir until the seeds turn slightly brown and fragrant, around 2 minutes. Add the onions to the pan and reduce heat to medium high. Stir frequently, cook the onions until slightly brown and crispy, around 15 minutes. Scoop out a quarter of the caramlized onions onto a plate to use as granish later.

Add the rice to the pan, stir consistently so it doesn't stick to the pan or break. Once the rice is translucent, around 3-4 minutes, add the cooked lentils, the spices, salt, pepper and the water to the pan. Stir well and bring to a boil. Turn down the heat to low, place a lid on the pan, let the ingredients simmer until the rice is cooked through and all the liquid is absorbed, 20-30 minutes. Remove the pot from heat, let is sit for an additional five minutes before serving.

Serve the dish on a bed of lettuce, topped with the carmalized onions, a wedge of lemon or a dollup of plain yogurt.

11/14/2013

If I was on the fence about the slow cooker, this particular dish here has tipped the scales.When the slow cooker had finished doing its magic, I found myself hovered over the pot, fork in hand, double dipping, tongue burning, and hoping nobody would stumble into the kitchen.It was crock pot crack.

The dish is called mashawa.Humaira deemed it Afghan chili when she posted the original recipea few months ago.It has the consistency of chili and boasts three different legumes.It’s crowned with a scoop of yogurt just as you might finish a Southwestern chili with sour cream.The flavor however, is distinctly Afghan, not remotely Tex Mex:coriander and dill in lieu of chili powder and cumin.And while it’s loaded with flavor, it lacks the heat of a traditional chili.If you like spicy, boost the amount of red chili flakes in the recipe.

I’m keeping this posting short.I need time to figure out which crock pot I’m going to buy.

Heat the oil in large skillet over medium-high heat, add the onions and sauté for 5 minutes. Add garlic and cook for another minute. Season the meat with a healthy pinch of Kosher salt and black pepper and add to the onions/garlic.Cook for 10-12 minutes until nicely browned.

While the meat is browning, combine the chicken broth, tomato paste, coriander, chili flakes, mung beans, ½ tsp. of the salt and the black pepper to the crock pot.Stir well.Add the browned meat/onions to the pan and stir again.Turn the crock pot to low and cook for 6 hours.After 6 hours, add the kidney beans, chickpeas and dill.Continue to cook on low for an additional 30 minutes.If the meat is not tender enough, let it go another 30 minutes.

When you are ready to eat, stir together the yogurt, dried garlic and remaining half teaspoon of salt.

In a small bowl mix together the yogurt, garlic and remaining ½ tsp of salt.

Serve in bowls with a dollop of yogurt and a piece of nan or flat bread.

09/26/2013

People always ask me if ingredients for Afghan recipes are hard to find. The answer to this is always a resounding “no”.While there are a small handful of unusual ingredients in Afghan cooking, the great majority of what’s needed can be found in your neighborhood supermarket such as Safeway, Ralph’s, or Whole Foods.Living in the San Francisco Bay Area has many advantages (house prices are not one of them) including accessibility to ethnic grocery stores.However, you can access a large selection of more exotic ingredients online at www.sadaf.com.I have not used this site since I purchase Sadaf brands in my local ethnic market, but I have friends who rely on it for specialty ingredients.

Here is a peek into our pantry with a breakdown of the ingredients most commonly used in Afghan cooking. We hope this will make it fun and easy for you to try our Afghan recipes.

Herbs and Spices

In Afghanistan spices are typically bought in bulk and ground as needed.But as busy moms and home cooks, we buy most spices already ground and packaged.Below is the list of the most commonly used herbs and spices:

Legumes are used as an extender for kebabs and other meat dishes since they are far less expensive than meat.You will find them fried and salted as a snack or coated with sugar to have with tea.

oChick peas

oKidney Beans

oMung Beans

oSplit Peas

oLentils

·The Onion Family

Practically every savory Afghan dish is made with onions in some form.Most common is something called piaz e surkh kada, which is finely minced onion cooked in plenty of oil until deeply browned, lending a rich and mellow flavor to meats and vegetables.Afghans also use the “juice” of the onion, squeezing out the liquid and distributing it in ground meat for kebabs.

oYellow onions

oRed onions

oGandana (similar in appearance to leeks; available in specialty markets.Leeks and/or green onions can be substituted)

oLeeks

oScallions

·Rice

Afghans are very particular about their rice; it is the centerpiece of nearly every meal.Using the right rice and cooking it properly are considered essentials for a good Afghan cook. We recommend the least processed Basmati rice you are able to find.

05/08/2013

There
are times I feel ill suited for my community.
Somehow I always seem to be doing things a little off from the norm. This year when people asked me about our
family’s spring break plan, I enthusiastically answered, "The kids going to be with their doting grandmother and that I am off to a Monastery in New Mexico."

The
reaction, a blank stare and then...

“Oh!
That is interesting, are you going on a yoga retreat?”

“No yoga, no retreat, I am just going to visit the brothers.”

My
answer was clearly a conversation stopper.
Apparently not many people go to a Monastery for a “visit”, especially
not a Muslim Afghan woman. Monastery of
Christ In the Dessert is tucked away in a canyon in northern New Mexico, about
13 miles on a dirt road, off a remote highway.

Chapel at sunrise, the best time of the day

Even
though the Monastery is cut off from the world; no cell access or Internet but
the modern amenities of warm showers, cozy rooms and great food are still there. No roughing it for this gal.

Twenty-one
years ago my eldest brother who used the pseudonym Fred Believer, became estranged from our family and took
refuge among the brothers who accepted him unconditionally and made him part of
their community. My brother became the
grounds keeper of the Monastery and lived as a layman in the community until
he joined his maker on February 25th, 2013.
Despite the fact we were devastated and hurt without him for all those years, we
are grateful that he lived with the love of the brothers.

Chama river runs through the canyon, a great hike got me here

Last
spring on my third visit to the Monastery after my brother’s death, I made an
Afghan feast for the community. I must
admit prior to that meal the most I had cooked for was around 20 people. I was
very nervous cooking for such a large group, nearing 45, but thankfully the
dinner was a hit. Naturally I wrote a blog post about it. I was honored to be welcomed back as a
visitor this year and my offer to make an Afghan meal
again was accepted.

We had a talking meal in celebration of the feast

This
year my capable assistants were Br. Benedict, Br. Caedman and my brother’s sweet
heart Rosy. We chopped large bunches
of cilantro, tons of tomatoes, green onions and yellow onions. We assembled 50 bolanis, marinated 40lbs of
chicken, cooked 10 eggplants and made five pounds of rice pudding.

Br. Benedict offering a rice pudding taste to Prior James

Cooking
for the community is not only an honor but also a wonderful opportunity to go
behind the scenes and into the world of the monks. I understand outsiders are rarely allowed to cook for the community. During the hours I spent in the kitchen I got to talk, laugh and even dance to the Beatles with the
brothers as they went about their day of work and prayer.

Although the brothers and guests move about
their days in silence they seem to make exceptions when I am around. Everyone overlooks the fact that I don’t know
the right rituals at the Chapel or that I tease the brothers when I should be
formal with them or that I chat up a storm during moments of silence. After eight hours of cooking, I was energized
by the love, acceptance and kindness of the brothers who made me feel right at
home and part of their community, just like they did with my brother.

Social hour after Sunday mass

Last
year I made a formal meal of Qabili Palau, Kadoo, slow cooked spinach the
coveted Afghan Sabzi dish. Most Afghan dishes taste best when served hot, right out of the pot. Since the brothers have formalities and prayers before the Sunday meal, I decided to make dishes that can sit for a
while and still taste delicious.

The menu consisted of what I call Afghan street food. Dishes that are; easy to
prepare, do well at room temperature and they are fun to eat. The brothers don’t eat lamb or beef so the
meat I featured was a Chicken Kebab. For
the vegetarians we had potato Bolani, Afghan eggplant dish, Borani
Banjan and a big fresh Afghan Salad. At
the last minute I decided to make Dough, the Afghan salted yogurt drink which
people either love or hate. In this case it was love. Rosy's favorite, the creamy rice pudding with almond slivers and
cardamom was a big hit with the Indian brothers who were reminded of their home.

I
hope that one day you all will have a chance to visit this magical place, The
Monastery of Christ In the Dessert.

Gorgeous fresh ingredients

Delicious salad lovingly made by Br. Benedict

Sweet and creamy rice pudding

This Afghan feast was dedicated to my brother, Fred
Believer who loved this monastery
and all the brothers with all his heart.

April 2011, my daughters Sofia and Aria and their uncle, Fred Believer

03/05/2013

Many event announcements, beautiful photos or fantastic ideas pass through my fabecebook page or my email which I want to share with others but somehow they fall by the waste side. I finally decided to create a platform to share these "tidbits" of information with you on a monthly basis.

My hope is to centralize some of the great information about Afghan culture, events or anything interesting in the Afghan Culture Tidbits section of this blog so you too can enjoy them too.

If you know of any events, gatherings or special programs in the U.S. or Afghanistan please send them to me at hghilzai@gmail so I can include them in the Afghan Culture Tidbit monthly posts.

As always, I love having guest bloggers. If you have a recipe, a favorite restaurant or a cultural event you want to write about and share with others my blog, Afghan Culture Unveiled might be your platform.

Literature:

Award winning Afghan American writer Tamim Ansary auhtor of West of Kabul, East of New York, Destiny Dirupted and his most recent book Games Without Rules is offering two writing workshops for all you aspiring writers.

Tamim is a dear friend and one of my favorite auhtors. He makes very complex concepts easy to understand and he has delightful sense of humor. I highly recommend his workshops; Memoir Writing and Writing a Non-Fiction Book Proposal. You may find the details, cost and time for the workshops here.

Film:

If you live in New York City or nearby don't miss a series of thoughtfully curated movies about Afghanistan at the Guggenheim Musuem in the next month.

Buzkashi Boys, making a splash at the Oscars. Since we are on the topic of films, how about the adorable young actors of the movie Buzkashi Boys who attended the Oscars? If you want to purchase the DVD of this short film, click here.

Below is a photo of the real Buzkashs, they are great horsememen who play the Afghan national sport of Buzkashi. Usually from the northern provinces of Afghanistan.

02/28/2013

This week I was proud to help my daugther Sofia prepare for her presentation about the Afghan holiday Eid for her Spanish class. Her teacher had asked each student to choose a holiday important to them and create a presentation in Spanish about it. Sofia, to my surprise went all out by putting together a powerpoint presenation with spinning pictures and a menu of Afghan food she and I were to make for her classmates.

Having spent the last 10 years of my life educating people about Afghanistan, I was happy that some of what I had shared with my children had sunk in. So, if you are raising bi-cultural children don't give up if they ignore your cultural insights. The information is sinking in despite their whining and lack of interest at that moment.

Sofia dug into Afghan Culture Unveilved for recipes and carefully chose dishes that she thought her classmates would enjoy. One day after school I found her in the kitchen with the ingredients for Kulche Birinjee scattered around the. So, a new blog post idea was born and I ruined the moment by brining out my camera and snapping photos.

After recovering from my excitement, I was surprised by her reourcefulness but it also dawned on me that this recipe is so easy that even a 10 year old can make it. So, get out the rice flour, sugar, butter, egg whites and cardamom and make some of these cookies for the upcoming Afghan new year with you little one. Another added bonus, they are gluten free.

In Afghanistan cookies very similar to these are made just for Nowroz, they are called Nowrozee. The recipe is very much the same except that bright food coloring is used to make a plus shape design on top of the cookies for a festive holiday look.

I hope you and your family enjoy these cookies during your Noworz celebration.

Afghan Butter Cookies

Kulche Birinjee

3/4 cup butter (1 1/2 sticks), softened to room temperature

3/4 cup sugar

2 egg whites

2 cups white rice flour

1/2 tsp. ground cardamom

1/4 cup coarsely chopped pistachios (you can leave out if you don't like nuts)

1/4 cup shelled whole pistachios

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Beat butter and sugar with an electric mixer until light and creamy. Add the egg whites and mix until smooth. Gradually add the rice flour, cardamom and pistachios (if you choose to use them). Mix well.

Scoop up a tablespoon of dough and set on a cookie sheet (ungreased is ok). Flatten the dough with the palm of your hand. The cookie will not rise or spread during cooking. Next, press the back of a fork into the dough, making a criss-cross with the tines of the fork (like you would with a peanut butter cookie). If the fork begins to stick, dip it in a glass of cold water from time to time. Place a pistachio in the center of the cookie.

Continue with the remainder of the dough, setting the cookies 1 ½ inches apart.

02/01/2013

I reently came across the most stunning photos of Afghanistan by Matthieu Paley. I must confess this was the first time I had seen photos of the Afghan Kyrgyz tribe who are nomads, live a very remote life untouched by the outside world.

You may see all of Matthieu's photos on his website. I am going to order a copy of his photo book called Pamir since it will make a wonderful coffee table book.

Here is the introduction to Matthieu's book:

High in the Pamir Mountains of Afghanistan, a remnant group
of less than 1000 Kyrgyz dwell in one of the remotest and inhospitable
environments occupied by any human population.
Deprived of the simplest infrastructure, schools or health care
institutions and faced with an ever growing problem of opium addiction this
community shows the highest level of maternal and child mortality in the
world.

In this high, barren valley called Little Pamir, survival depends on livestock. Red-robed Kyrgyz girls corral sheep for milking, while dung dries atop the walls for use as fuel. The sheep, along with goats, yaks, and camels, provide milk, meat, and wool and even serve as currency: One lamb buys 110 pounds of flour.

Kyrgyz herders adore their cell phones, which they acquire by trading and keep charged with solar-powered car batteries. Though useless for communication—cellular service doesn’t reach the isolated plateau—the gadgets are used to play music and take photos.

A girl carries a pair of lambs to be reunited with their mothers for the night. On especially cold days the vulnerable young animals are kept warm in cloth bags hung in the herders’ huts. The Kyrgyz complain that their winters are brutal. But would they want to call any other place home?

Blanket-draped yaks hunker down outside a young couple’s yurt on the eve of a summer trading journey. Made of interlaced poles covered with felt, these portable homes are packed up and reassembled for seasonal migration. Wooden doors are imported to the treeless plateau from lower altitudes.

Kyrgyz girls slide plastic jugs back to their family’s camp after chopping a hole in a frozen spring to fetch water. Men handle herding and trading; much of the hard labor of daily life falls to the females.

09/28/2012

Last week over dinner, my 13 year-old daugther Aria asked me if I had heard about the film on Prophet Muhammad and the resulting riots. Of course I had. I was reading every bit of news about it.

Usually I kick-off our dinner discussions
about current events, but on this subject I’d been silent mostly because I
wasn’t sure where I stood on it.

Don’t get me wrong; the film is extremely
insulting to Muslims who believe Prophet Muhammad is the messenger of God and
the last Prophet sent to humans by God.
Muslims live their lives following the teachings of Prophet
Muhammad. However, Muslim’s reverence of
the Prophet by no means justifies violent protests nor the burning of buildings
and killing innocent peoples such as Ambassador Stevens.

So, are Muslims barbarians?

Unfortunately we only hear about the
small number of Muslims making the loudest noise and taking the most
destructive paths. We don’t hear about Muslims demonstrating peacefully or the constructive
conversations among Muslims that this video triggered.

Until
recently, I had not heard that Egyptian activists are taking legal action
against Ahmed Abdullah, who burnt the bible during the riots, and more
importantly about Libyan protesters who attacked the militant
Islamist group believed to be responsible for U.S Ambassador Stevens’ death and
ran them out of town.

I was brought up understanding Islam as a
peaceful religion and Muslims as tolerant citizens of the world. That’s still true. Egypt’s grand
mufti, Ali Gomaa, recently reminded Muslims that Prophet Muhammad on many
occasions was insulted or run out of town for his ideas but the Prophet always
endured all personal insults and attacks without retaliation. Today Muslims around the world should follow
the Prophet’s example.

What is heartening to
me is that many Muslims and Islamic leaders around the world are engaging in
open discussions about:

What is Islam’s role in a globalized
world?

What is the role of religion and
politics?

What is free speech?

How should Muslims engage in a dialogue
with non-Muslims and how should they react to blasphemy against Islam?

Thoughtful Muslims are
taking lemons and making lemonade. Qatar
has announced that they are investing $450 million in a three-part epic on the
life of Prophet Muhammad so people around the world can learn about Islam. Similarly, Islamic leaders like Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, nephew of Saudi Arabia’s king,
denounced extreme reactions and noted that Islam was too strong to warrant such
uproar over such matter.

There are
49 Muslim countries summing up to 2.2 billion Muslims living among us today. As I started digging I was surprised to find
out that in Saudi Arabia, UAE, Turkey, Indonesia, Malaysia, Afghanistan, and many
other countries there were only peaceful protests or no public protests at all.

So why do
some Muslims start rioting or killing people over a small-minded video?

I found
that the biggest and most violent rioting were in countries:

With autocratic governments where
freedom of speech is unfathomable and therefore people are convinced that the
U.S. government endorsed the film.

Where governments are weak or
in transition.

With low literacy rates where uneducated
people are more easily swayed by militant Muslims.

Where unemployment is high and
local populations have a bone to pick with their government without much to
lose.

Where a rudimentary understanding
of true Islam makes subverting its core values easier.

Where political motive or
anti-American sentiment fuels reactions against things labeled as “American”.

Pakistan
fills this bill very well. The literacy rate in Pakistan is at 46% with a deep
anti-American sentiment fueled by extremely conservative Muslims secretly
supported by the Pakistani government and secret service ISI. Although the constitution of Pakistan
guarantees freedom of speech and freedom of press, it is well known that
journalists who have written about ISI or government corruption turn up dead in
a ditch.

What is really sad is that violent demonstrations are only hurting the image of Muslims
and the highest death tolls are mostly incurred by Muslims.

I consider
myself a Muslim. My husband Jim grew up
Catholic but nowadays he is agnostic and our two daughters attend a Quaker
school.

You can say
we are the modern family showcasing what our world looks like today. I feel the more we find a common ground and
mutual understanding the better our lives will be as we move forward. After all, don’t all Abrahamic religions
fundamentally teach the same thing?

04/13/2011

Last week when I was in Kabul, I was staying in a guest house located in the Shar e Now (new city) district which used to be a very high-end neighborhood with paved roads, fancy shops. It was where foreigners would hang out along with wealthy modern Afghans. Today the only thing it has in common with its glorious past is that the foreigners are still there, only mostly congregating in offices, guest houses and restaurants, making the district one of the most dangerous in Kabul eventhough it's in the "green zone". The roads now have major pot holes, the sidewalks are crumbling, the traffic is unbearable and every building is draped in barbed wire and features a guard’s station with armed guards for protection.

Girls after school on the streets of shar e now

My guest house, The International Club, had four guards outside the compound, and four inside. Every person who was not a guest was thoroughly searched, especially Afghans in traditional attire. In the sixties and seventies, the glory days of Afghanistan, The International Club was where the rich Afghans played tennis (the courts still there), swam in the indoor lap pool and gathered for networking and socializing. Sadly, today, the only Afghans allowed in were the waiters, cleaning staff and guards.

Another crumbling wall in shar e now

The fact that I, an Afghan, stayed there as a guest, brought a certain level of excitement to the hotel. All of the staff and the guards were particularly kind to me, going out of their way to be helpful. They were constantly trying to figure out if I am some kind of a celebrity or an influential person by shyly asking me subtle questions. The manager even refused to take my money when I tried to purchase a necklace from their stash of local handicrafts.

The International Club has an expansive menu featuring dozens of items -- smoothies, pizzas, pastas, and rice dishes – none of which ever seemed to be available when ordered. What surprised me most was that they had no Afghan food on the menu. I stand corrected, they did have Qabili Palau, but like most everything else, it was never available.

The of the tennis courts and the empty indoor pool from my room

To be honest with you of the nine days I was in Afghanistan I might have had Afghan food at a handful of meals. These were mostly in situations where we were invited as a guest of Governor, Mayor or a Minister at their offices. When I told my family members in Kabul about my cravings for Afghan food they showed up the next night at my guest house (which I couldn’t leave at nights) with a platter of Qabili Palau, sabzi (spinach), potato and green onion bolani (Afghan stuffed flat bread), a jar of dough (Afghan yogurt drink), aloo bukhara (dried sour plums) jam and a large platter of oranges for dessert.

The guards were blown away and so were all the other guests at the hotel. My 12 Afghan family members descending on the hotel loaded down with food was quite a sight. We had a big party in the hall way. The staff were very excited and kept bringing us tea, juice and pastries so I can be a good host to my guests. I was very grateful to my family and friends who came and visited me in my guest house when I was sequestered due to security issues and threats of riots.

So, in honor of Afghan hospitality, I am sharing the Qabili Palau recipe again since this was the dish that was served at every single Afghan meal I consumed. I must admit (and forgive me my dear friends who cooked for me while I was in Afghanistan) that my mom’s Qabili Palau is significantly more delicious and flavorful than any of the ones I had in Afghanistan. Let’s all make Qabili Palau in the next few days as a celebration of a peaceful Afghanistan where I can go visit my family members freely, day and night.

Afghanistan’s National Dish

Qabili Palau

3 cups basmati rice

5 skinless chicken legs

5 skinless chicken thighs

2 large yellow onions, peeled and quartered

½ c plus 2 tbsp. olive oil or vegetable oil, divided

5 tsp. salt

1 cup chicken broth

3 large carrots, peeled

1 cup black raisins

½ cup slivered almonds

3 tbsp. sugar

¾ cup water

2 tsp. ground cumin

1 ½ tsp. ground cardamom

½ tsp. ground black pepper

12 cups water

2 tsp. browning sauce such at Kitchen Bouquet (optional)*

Instructions:

Preheat the oven to 500 degrees.

Immerse rice in a bowl of water and drain in a colander. Repeat this step 3 times.

Wash and dry the chicken. Set aside.

Chop the onions in a food processor using the pulse button. Don't puree the onions. You can do this by hand if you prefer.

Choose a sauté pan that is at least a couple inches deep and large enough to fit all the chicken. Pour ½ cup of the oil in the pan and sauté the onions over high heat, stirring quickly, until brown (5-10 minutes). Don't burn them. Add the chicken to the pan and sprinkle with 3 tsp. of the salt. Cook the chicken over medium-high heat for 6 minutes, turning from time to time so all sides turn golden brown. The onion will start to caramelize and turn into a thick sauce. Add 1/4 cup of the chicken broth, and continue stirring to keep the chicken from burning. Once the liquid has been absorbed, add another 1/4 cup of, bring it to a boil, cover with a lid or aluminum foil, and simmer for 10 minutes. The sauce should turn a dark brown. If your sauce does not take on a dark color you can add the Kitchen Bouquet to give it color.

While the chicken is cooking, cut the carrots into long matchsticks, about 4 inches long and 1/8-inch thick. Make sure that they are not too thin. In a large frying pan add ¾ cups of water and bring to a boil, add the carrots and cook until tender and a deep orange hue, 5 to 7 minutes. Keep a close eye on this to make sure you do not overcook them. Once the carrots are done, drain any leftover liquid out of the pan. Add the remaining 2 tbsp of oil, raisins, almonds and sugar to the carrots. Stir quickly over medium-high heat and keep stirring for about 3 minutes. The raisins will look plump; the carrots will take on a nice sweet flavor. Remove from heat and package the carrots into a sealed aluminum foil pouch about the size of a small paperback novel.

Remove the chicken pieces from the broth and set aside. Stir the cumin, cardamom and black pepper into the broth. Continue to cook on low for 5 minutes to allow it to thicken.

Meanwhile, measure 12 cups of water and the remaining 2 tsp. of salt into a large Dutch oven or pot (see our Palau post for photos) with a fitted lid. Bring it to a boil. Add the rice to the water and boil until it is al dente (nearly cooked, though still slightly crunchy). This will take just a few minutes depending on the rice you use. You will have to taste it to check for doneness. Do not overcook it.

Immediately strain the rice through a colander. Put the rice back into its cooking pot and add the broth. Mix well. Arrange the chicken pieces on top of the rice. Set the aluminum package of carrots on top of the rice. This will keep the carrots warm and deepen the flavors without mixing with the rice yet.

Bake the rice for 15 minutes in 500 degrees then drop the temperature down to 250 degrees. Cook for another 20 minutes.

Arrange the chicken pieces on a large platter, cover with the rice. Sprinkle the carrots, raisins, and almonds on the rice. Serve with a simple salad.

09/22/2010

Puttering around my home kitchen today with a pot of this lamb and spinach qorma bubbling away on the stove, it struck me how fortunate I am to prepare such a dish for my family.Consider the typical woman in my same position in Afghanistan: a mother just like me, no less determined to nurture her children with wholesome food.But the probability that she’d have the means to serve lamb for a casual weekday meal?Not likely.

The average family in Afghanistan subsists on rice and nan; beans, legumes and vegetables round out the rest of the diet.Cooking is often done over a primitive, wood-burning set-up of some kind.Most everyday dishes are vegetarian.This lamb qorma here is as Afghan as it gets, it’s just that meat in any substantial quantity is usually reserved for special occasions.

We published the vegetarian version of this dish, qorma e sabzi, a good while back.It’s one of my favorites. When a reader recently requested the variation made with lamb, we thought it would be a perfect opportunity to share the recipe.The meat adds richness and a layer of flavor and texture that is truly delicious.When I serve it for dinner tonight, along with a bowlful of Greek yogurt and warm nan for scooping, I will think of my Afghan counterpart on the other side of the globe feeding her family just as I feed mine.

Lamb and Spinach Stew

Sabzi e Goshte

3 tbsp. olive oil

2 large yellow onions, finely chopped

1 ½ lbs. boneless lamb stew, cut into 1-inch cubes

2 tsp. Kosher salt, divided

1/4 tsp. ground black pepper

2 large cloves garlic, minced

1 tbsp. tomato paste

½ cup water

1 tsp. ground turmeric

2 tsp. ground coriander

1/4 tsp. ground cumin

2 lbs. frozen, chopped spinach (not defrosted)

1 tsp. ground fenugreek (optional)

1 tbsp. dried dill

1/2 cup chopped fresh cilantro

2 tbsp. lemon juice

1 ½ cups plain Greek-style yogurt

Heat the oil in a large pan over medium-high heat and add the onions.Saute until golden brown, stirring occasionally (10 to 15 minutes).While the onions are cooking, season the lamb with1 tsp. of the salt and the black pepper.Once the onions are browned, add the lamb to the pan and continue to cook until the onions and meat melt together and the meat just begins to color on the outside, about 8 minutes.Add the garlic, tomato paste, water, turmeric, coriander, and cumin to the pan.Cover with a lid or aluminum foil, turn down the heat until the liquid simmers and cook for 20 minutes, stirring from time to time.If the sauce begins to dry up, add another ¼ cup of water.

Add the frozen spinach to the lamb and continue to cook over medium-high heat, stirring regularly, until it defrosts and the liquid comes to a boil.If the pan looks dry after the spinach has defrosted, add a few tablespoons of water.Once the spinach boils, add the fenugreek, dill, cilantro and lemon juice.Stir thoroughly, cover and cook for another 30 minutes or so until the lamb is tender. Keep an eye on the pan so it doesn't dry out.If it does, just add little water.

04/17/2010

As the non-Afghan in this blogging duo I feel a particular responsibility to get my Afghan food facts straight.Humaira reviews all of my posts before they go live to make sure I don’t embarrass us both with some glaring misstep in my recipes (“No Katie, an Afghan would never use brown rice in her challaw”).

Humaira and I both strive to have our recipes be as authentic as possible.As self-appointed ambassadors for Afghan cooking, we’ve collectively wondered how much room there is to “play” with ingredients.It’s a little tricky.Luckily, Afghan food is not a cuisine of extremes.There aren’t a lot of unusual ingredients, strange tastes or searing spiciness.But I do find myself wanting to tinker with recipes and ratios to suit my own American tastes.

For example, in Afghanistan when you are served kofta (seasoned ground beef or lamb), the amount of oil used is a measure of the cook’s generosity.So when a host sets kofta swimming in fat in front of you, it’s a sort of honor.But I use a lighter hand with the olive oil bottle.To me, it’s more appealing, healthier and more balanced.

Also, I’m a nut for dark leafy greens.Much to my kids' chagrin, I manage to work kale, chard and beet greens into all manner of dishes throughout fall and winter.My favorite Afghan recipes are no exception.I’m particularly fond of melting chard into aush, a tasty Afghan soup.It’s not something you’d see back in Afghanistan and I’ve wondered if this renders my aush an interloper.But isn’t that the beauty of home cooking, the freedom to make each dish your own?

So, I was comforted when I attended a panel discussion of Central Asian chefs called “Spice Route Meets California Cuisine.”The three presenters, Sri Gopinathan, chef of Campton Place, Hoss Zare, of Fly Trap, and Afreen Wahab, an academician, all agreed that bringing old world foods to new world cultures does sometimes mean making changes.

Interestingly the panelists pointed out that even within India, the country’s famous spice blend garam masala varies not just by region or even by village, but by cook.There is no “right” way to make it.Each housewife crafts her own version according to her personal taste.

Afghans have their own “garam masala” I suppose.It’s the spice mixture used in palau,Afghanistan’s classic chicken and rice dish.And every Afghan cook does it her own way.Ours has just a few ingredients:cumin, cardamom, and black pepper.My American twist on the combination is to use it as a spice rub for chicken, lamb or beef.This is hardly authentic, but wholly delicious.

Palau Spice Mixture

2 tsp. ground cumin

1 ½ tsp. ground cardamom

½ teaspoon ground black pepper

Combine the spices.Use in palau (see recipe under main dishes) or as a spice rub for grilled lamb, beefor chicken along with a sprinkling of salt.

Seasonings used in palau, clockwise from top left: black pepper, salt, cumin, and cardamom